The End of the World
by Arty Thrip - Alpha 04
Summary: Two hours, two minutes and two seconds later saw Connor Temple taking a good look back over his last day. Apocalyptical. Connor/Abby, slight Sarah/Becker.
1. Two hours, two minutes and two seconds

**Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval, or anything else, so there**

**Author Note: This story is really strange. If you want to flame then please do, I'll be fine. This is my first ever Primeval fanfic (I usually write for Septimus Heap, my friend suggested I wrote this) and may, just may, if people like it, have a second chapter. The title really explains what it is about and there are a couple of spoilers from the third series, but most people know about that, so... This is for my friend Prichard...**

***** Just thought I'd add that at the moment, this isn't actually Arty posting this, but it's her mate Rollieo 122, because she can't actually post it at the minute, and I'm in a better position to do so... (weird, huh?) So, yeah... *****

**Please review me ~ARTY~**

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The End of the World

Two hours, two minutes and two seconds later saw Connor Temple taking a good look back over his last day. He had never given much thought to this, he never wanted that to happen, he never planned it, he never even tried to think about it. Connor felt slightly queasy at the thought of that. He didn't want to think but he couldn't help it. The things that had happened two hours, two minutes and two seconds earlier could not be erased, not without an anomaly, which was the thing, the anomaly was gone, closed, vanished, Connor didn't know and Connor didn't really care. Connor was almost the only one left.

Only the ARC team were still alive now. What had they done? What had they unleashed? They didn't know, but they were powerless to stop it. They sat in a room in the ARC alone in their misery, if they ventured out then they would die just like every member before them. There was no food, no water, no electricity… If the things didn't get them then they'd die on their own. They realised that this was going to be their last day to walk on the surface of the Earth. Everything they had worked for, all they had created, all that their friends had died for, was gone and never coming back. Jenny Lewis was dead, killed along with the rest. Nick Cutter was dead, shot by his wife Helen. Stephen Hart was dead, mauled by creatures too, but nothing like this. This was worse than those creatures that had plucked Stephen Hart from this world and far less mortal. Almost _immortal_. That was the thing, the only person with the power to stop this, Helen Cutter, was dead too, she had been one of the first to go, she had invited it in.

Captain Becker was frustrated now, he'd been stuck for too long, but Danny Quinn had forced him to stay put. _All_ of his men were dead, not one was still alive. Who else lived? Abby and Sarah were alive, barely, but then again, they didn't have much choice. It was die or be killed. They had tried optimism two hours, two minutes and two seconds ago, but now there was nothing left. No hope to cling to, no hope, no happiness, and no chance of survival. Not yet.

James Lester lived too, but elsewhere, they didn't know exactly where, but they knew he was alive. Becker had put a tracking device into each of them that didn't turn off until they died and Lester's was still on. Still, it wouldn't be long before he died.

This thing was lethal, and if it didn't kill them then its aftermath would. It had been close getting them into this room, they had lost many, many men in the process, but it didn't matter.

This was the end of the human race.

By now they were sure it was everywhere. Breathing it was lethal, smelling it was lethal, touching it was lethal, and every contact with it was lethal. And if any anomalies opened it would go through there and contaminate the whole planet with ease, past and present and future.

Connor sighed; there was nothing better to do.

"This is pointless," he said sadly to his comrades. "We may as well just die here... How many bullets have you got left, Becker?"

Becker's eyes narrowed as they focused on Connor. "I'm not shooting anyone. Besides, I only have three. If Lester is still alive then we should find him, right? I'm assigned to protect you and that is what I will do, _all_ of you, even James Lester."

"Oh, shut it Becker," Danny snapped. "There is no bloody call of bloody duty anymore. There's no point. There's no bloody army anyway, they're all dead too, the army definitely isn't immortal to _that_."

"You know," said Sarah, completely changing the subject. "I think the artefact was in here. Maybe that artefact can solve this."

"Can the artefact undo time?" Connor asked, sighing again. "If it can then go on, open it up… It isn't like we have some _light thingy_, is it? We can't even open it, right? Maybe, if it can open an anomaly then we can get away or something…"

"Where would we go?" Abby whispered. "There's nowhere. There is no future, there is no past… There is most definitely no present. There's nothing. That's if some stupid creature doesn't come through that anomaly and kill us all."

"I have three bullets," Becker repeated solemnly. "Only three. Anyone got anything else?"

"Nope," Connor said. "But I still reckon going through an anomaly is better than staying here. At least those last things died and stayed dead. You know guys; I never thought that I would die here, not in the ARC, not now… Actually, I'd never really given much thought to how I would die… I don't really want to starve to death…"

"I reckon that saving Lester would be a good plan…" Danny said, staring intently at the floor. "It would get us doing something… And if we die, then hey, there's nothing better to do. I don't really want to die like this… At least if the thing gets us then we'll go to be with our families, and, you know, I'd rather we all went together than one of us have to live with it…"

"Yeah," Abby breathed. "Which way then? Die in that ventilation shaft or die through that door? Or maybe even the window? A vote?"

"I vote the shaft. It will probably keep us alive for longer…" said Danny, who had a habit of crawling through ventilation shafts just for the sake of it.

"Yes. The shaft," said Sarah. "I think I'd like for us to die together… Let's unblock it…"

They had shoved several jackets into the shaft to keep the thing out. They wouldn't have known if it was in the shaft or not. With one final lingering look at one another they pulled the jackets away and waited for anything to happen… Anything, an end, a beginning, they didn't know… But they stood there together, Abby clasped Connor's hand with force, but he didn't complain, he sighed horribly. Sarah glanced over at Becker, who was still staring at her and still held his gun up at the vent, just in case. But Danny was smiling, nobody knew why. He was waiting. He was ready. He was going to see his brother again.


	2. Of vents and ammo

**Disclaimer: I own nothing and half the things I've written about are NEVER ever going to happen (thank goodness, that's a relief)**

**Author Note: Thanks to eveyone who reviewed this and everyone else who just read it and didn't review and all those who favourited and alerted it... You've been a great help to me. Its my first Primeval fanfic, I think I said that last time, but I thought it was going to be terrible... Your support helped. Thanks to Rollieo 122 who DID NOT hack my account (I gave her my password) because nobody would have been able to read this, and to Prichard, who, as prviously mentioned, gave me the idea and to whom this is dedicated... I hope you enjoy ~ARTY~**

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Chapter 2

It was almost an anticlimax that nothing appeared to happen. The team had all been so ready to die and to leave this dystopian world behind them, but nothing happened, not a thing. After about a minute of trying to hold their breath they all sighed deeply, if they were going to die then they would already have been dead.

"So," said Danny Quinn conversationally, turning to the members of his team. "Shall we go? It seems safe. I'll go first."

Captain Becker snapped around to face him, his gun straying over Danny's body as he spoke the words: "_Not on your life_."

There was a stunned silence and Connor Temple tried desperately to stop from choking with laughter, now was _not_ the time to laugh at something so trivial, not when they were all going to die.

"I will go first," said Becker nobly, his gun returned to its previous position pointing directly at the grate of the air vent.

Sarah Page looked at him in horror. "It's dangerous! It isn't safe. I don't think anyone should go, we should stay here."

"Well a minute ago you were all for opening the vent and dying together," said Abby Maitland. "If Becker wants to fulfil his 'call of duty' then let him, chances are if he dies then we will too. I think it's a fine idea to go out like this."

"But…" Sarah argued, unperturbed. "We haven't found out _how_ this thing kills people. Perhaps if we find out some way of curing any inflictions it has upon us then we will survive this plague."

"And what? Re-populate the Earth?" Connor joked, throwing a glance at Abby with all due serious thought. "I don't think that would work. Incest, you know… There are only two girls and four boys, if Lester hasn't pegged out yet, so they have plenty of choice."

Becker checked his tracking mechanism again. "Lester's still alive," he said slowly. "Come on. I think we've established the human race is going to end and we will be the last of it, so let's go."

Becker and Danny climbed up on a couple of boxes to find a way of getting the grate off the vent, Becker carefully unloaded his gun and used the butt of it to hit the grate until it fell off the wall with a clash. Sarah seemed horrified that Becker was planning to lay down his life for them; something inside of her liked him more than he realised but it was hardly the time or the place to be saying these things to him or to anyone else.

Once the grate was off they waited with agitation for Becker to load his gun again with his three remaining bullets and slide it over his right shoulder tensely. Then Danny gave Becker a boost up to the grate and he pulled himself inside with minimal effort. As Becker disappeared down the narrow tunnel Danny turned to the others.

"Who's next?" he asked them enthusiastically. "I'll go last because I don't really want you guys to have to lift yourselves up that bit."

The other three exchanged glances amongst themselves, willing one of the others to answer first.

"I'll go," Sarah Page whispered softly. "If Becker will give up his life for us then I guess I should too, it's the right thing to do."

Sarah felt three pairs of eyes fix themselves onto her and suddenly felt as if she had said the wrong thing.

"Sarah, are you sure you want to do this?" Danny asked her, double checking her answer just in case. "Becker is giving up his life for us because he has some ideal in his head that it is the call of duty to protect us, even if he dies trying. A lot of army men are like that, they're trained not to feel emotions like fear so that they won't be liable in battle. I'm pretty sure Egyptologists don't receive the same treatment. If you're scared then don't go. Becker's still all for dying for Queen and Country even though there is no Queen and there is no Country anymore, there's no army either but I'm sure he knows that, I've told him enough times."

"No, I know why Becker is like that, I always knew, but he is still sacrificing himself for the World. We are the World, remember that, there is nobody left for him and his mentality to protect except us and that is what he is doing. I'm going to go, it was my idea we die together so I want to be there for him if he should die."

Danny nodded solemnly and knitted his fingers together so that Sarah could reach the opening, she pulled herself up much less gracefully than Becker had managed and accidentally trod on Danny's head so she could reach higher. Danny winced but didn't complain, things were going to get a lot worse where they were headed.

When Sarah caught up to Becker he had found a room that he thought was safe enough to go into, Sarah was, in fact, not particularly surprised to find that a room Becker rated as safe was full of the ARCs supply of guns and ammo. Becker hit the grate just hard enough for it to drop down loudly onto the floor of the arms room, then lowered himself down, pulling his own gun into the patrolling position as a matter of reflex. Upon scouting this room it was, quite surprisingly, free from this thing that was trying to kill them, the room was locked with an airtight seal and there were no windows for anything to leak through, only the grate was a weak point. Becker looked through the small glass opening in the door and saw the dead bodies of many a colleague littering the ground, he wasn't particularly shocked at the scene as any normal man would have been, but he simply dismissed it and began rummaging through boxes for some ammo to fit his rifle.

It wasn't long before Sarah felt Abby crawl up behind her followed incredibly closely by Connor and Danny, who had obviously worked together to get each other into the shaft. Danny was feeling impatient after waiting in the cramped space for over five minutes. He practically pushed Sarah so that she almost fell through the hole in front of her, she yelped in fear of slipping and attracted Becker's attention. Becker left the boxes and helped her gently down into the ammo room with him.

"Bloody Danny Quinn," he muttered. "I try to protect you and he almost bloody kills you all." Then he turned to Sarah. "Are you alright?" he asked her quietly.

Sarah was pretty sure she had never been this close to Becker before and nodded in a stunned silence. It was strange, she thought, that she should fall for a man who had been trained to show no emotion, least of all love, but then again, it wouldn't be the first time.


	3. Anger management

**Author Note: Hey guys, thanks for reading this far... This chapter is pointless, but will have some bearing on the future chapters... On my grammar (you know if you mentioned it), I will write as long a sentence as I want, thank you very much... And I'd appreciate you not telling me so in an anonymous review. Still, I'll try to make them shorter... Hope you enjoy**

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Chapter 3

Much to the annoyance of Captain Becker the entire ARC team ended up lowering themselves into the ammo room at the request of Danny Quinn, their impatient leader.

It was then that Becker decided that they may as well all arm themselves for the fight ahead, just in case of an emergency. He handed a gun each to Connor Temple and Abby Maitland, but faltered at the thought of giving any form of firearm to Danny Quinn, even though he knew that Danny was the only member of the team who could rival him at shooting. Sarah Page refused to take the gun that Becker offered her, she was not used to it, and she was afraid she might accidentally let it go off when they were in the vent again. Becker shrugged and strapped her gun over his other shoulder, just in case she needed it later.

Connor needed a bit of help to strap his gun to his back, he wasn't particularly used to wielding a gun like this, he had spent a lot of time when Cutter had been alive being banned from touching one of them following an incident with a man in a lion costume. Danny helped him, but the butt of the gun hit Connor on the chin and he batted it away, causing the barrel to swing around and hit him in the face.

Danny sniggered. "Smooth Connor," he laughed.

Becker glared at him. "I wouldn't call this the right place to be joking, Quinn."

"Is anywhere?" Danny retorted sourly. "Come on. We're sitting in a sealed room here, our air's gonna run out if we sit around doing nothing all day."

"_I couldn't agree more_," Becker snapped. "Come on, the vent ends soon, we should be in the foyer, after that… We try to stay alive as long as we can. The chances are slim, but if we find a way through that thing then the chances are that we'll find Sir James Lester."

"Have you ever thought…?" Connor began dreamily.

"Yes, Connor, we all have, now get on with it," said Becker moodily.

"No, listen Becker, listen everyone… This thing might have come from the past, which means that humans have survived it before… Maybe, elsewhere on the planet, there are people who are alive, like immune to it… Maybe we aren't the only ones left…"

"Wishful thinking never wins any wars for anyone," Becker shot him down, his military training flooding back to him. "Now I'm going first."

Becker stood on the top of a sturdy cardboard box and pulled himself once again up through the grate, but this time he turned skilfully, despite the numerous guns on his back, to help Sarah up into the vent. She followed him loyally. Sarah wanted to help Abby up, but Becker pulled her away from the opening, afraid she would fall out again. They were inside the vent for a shorter period this time around and Becker managed to kick the grate out at the end in about two attempts.

Becker lowered himself down and immediately began to patrol around with his gun, fearing the worst. Sarah scrambled out and swerved a little as she felt her feet hit the solid ground. Upon looking around, it looked relatively safe, there were no dead bodies in this room, and there was nothing here but an empty reception desk and the vending machine that Connor had managed to persuade Lester to install a few months ago. It was still full.

The others were even closer behind than last time, now they had established an order and an easy way to get into the shafts they were decidedly less spread out than before. As soon as his feet touched the carpeted floor, Connor Temple began to fish around in his pocket for something; the rest of them looked at him in disbelief.

Then he held something shiny triumphantly in his hand and walked towards the full vending machine, slotting it in carefully.

Becker raised his eyebrows. "Err… Connor? This is really not the time."

"Come off it!" Connor said cheerfully. "I don't want to die thirsty." Then his face fell. "Anyone got twenty pence on them?"

The machine was flashing and the annoying female voice rang out across the lobby with defiance. _'Please insert more change.'_

"Connor, for God's sake, this is ridiculous. Why would we have change?" asked Danny, a laugh in his voice.

'_Please insert more change.'_

"Come on! I want a drink!"

'_Please insert more change.'_

"Nobody has any money, Connor, you should get a refund," Abby laughed.

'_Please insert more change.'_

"Will somebody please shut that damn thing up?!" Becker shouted, spinning on his heel and firing three rounds quickly into the mechanism of the vending machine.

The other stared at him in silence as he fumed angrily. Connor's mangled fifty pence piece slid lazily out of the machine and rolled along the floor. Connor bent his knees slowly and picked it up, aware of how closely Becker's gun was aimed at his head.

"So much for three bullets left, Becker," Danny joked from behind him.

Becker turned and very nearly blew a hole in the side of Danny's skull, narrowly missing and demolishing a green vase on the receptionist desk.

"If you want a _drink_," Becker growled. "Get that _fire hammer_ and smash the glass."

Connor blinked at him in disbelief, why hadn't he thought of that? As he stood dumbfounded, Danny crossed the room, not in the least perturbed at the fact that Becker had come literally centimetres from killing him, and picked up the red fire hammer. He swung it about his shoulder.

"Batting practice," he murmured as he struck the glass once, causing a large crack straight up the middle. This glass, he decided, was not designed to break when people kicked the life out of the vending machine.

Then Danny struck the glass again, putting his weight behind it this time so the force was harder and the glass shattered, spraying shards inwards onto the bottles of drink contained within. Connor grinned insanely and reached inside to pull out a can of Fanta.

"Nice," he said, pulling it open. "Now, shall we go kill some things?"


	4. Operation Vending Machine

**Author Note: Sorry this chapter has been so long in the making. After chapter 2 I promised that I would try to update more regularly but I appear to have failed... This chapter sees them making some kind of breakthrough, for the moment... I hope to update another chapter as soon as I can. I was busy before, I had exams and stuff, but now the problem is that I have nothing to do except my coursework. I can't write this story when I'm at home because I need my memory stick and that's why it has taken me so long to write this. If you've forgotten the plot (which you probably have) then you can always go back and read the first three chapters again. I figure this story won't be massively long, hopefully no more than ten chapters. Once again I say that this story is for Prichard and Rollieo 122 (who reminded me I had to write this, though she didn't say anything) because they're both great friends and Rollieo is a really really slow typer (which has no bearing on this story, but she'll know what I mean)... I hope you haven't forgotten about me just yet. Also this is the first chapter I've written since the news that ITV had axed Primeval so unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to write any more stories after this, unless somebody gives me a new idea... So once again I can only apologise for my inconsistency and possible lack of action in this chapter, but it will have a bearing on the future chapters. Thank you for reading and thanks greatly to every single person who has reviewed this, I appreciate it a lot. Happy reading :D**

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Chapter 4

Captain Becker watched in disgust as Connor Temple took a swig from his can. He didn't understand why Connor wished to die with his body pumped full of chemicals, but he wasn't going to ask, as long as Connor kept that vile stuff away from him.

Connor smiled, it tasted good, better than usual. He decided it was probably because this was likely the last thing he'd ever have the pleasure of drinking. The look on Becker's face was priceless, he thought, he'd never seen Becker get quite as angry about something as trivial.

"Alright, Connor, you've had your _drink_, now can we please get going?" Becker said slowly, emphasising the word drink and grinding his teeth together as he knew the exact answer he was going to get.

Becker's prediction was correct though. "What's the rush?" said Abby Maitland slowly. "If you want to die then go ahead, but we may as well stay here for a while. We have food, and drink and air, for a change… As we're the last people on earth we may as well save humanity for a little bit longer, it's the least we can do."

"She has a point," said Connor, taking another gulp from his can. "Sure we're all gonna die, but why right now?"

Becker narrowed his eyes. Why, oh why did he have to be the only one left alive with _this lot_? They were just a bunch of scientists… And then there was Danny Quinn. Words couldn't describe Danny Quinn.

By this point Danny had reached the conclusion that Becker must be really stressed to get so angry so easily, either that or he just really didn't like Danny. Danny wasn't really sure what he should do to cheer Becker up but he knew that he didn't want the captain to die so wound up. Becker seemed in such a blazing hurry to go to his death that Danny was almost surprised before he realised that Becker must have had experiences like this in the past, when he was in the army. As a police officer Danny had seen people in some of their worst moments but somehow for him this one day felt worse than all those other moments added up and multiplied by a very large number.

Then he had a thought, about what Connor had said before in the ammo room about the things coming from the past. Connor could have been wrong, they could have come from the future, but he equally could have been right. If they had existed at some point in the past then there must have been some weakness that the people exploited to destroy it back then and that same weakness would still exist today as this current strain must have come directly from an anomaly, having no chance to mutate into something stronger. Danny's mind was racing. It couldn't be anything natural, otherwise the thing would never have come this far and killed this many people, so it must be something synthetic, or something that doesn't exist anymore. They had no chance of survival if it was the latter of his two conclusions, but the first could have been a real breakthrough, if they had the time to figure it out. Then again, he was in a room full of scientists!

"Guys, I have an idea," he said. The others almost jumped at the sound of his voice, he hadn't noticed how much time had passed while he had been thinking but they had obviously been sitting in silence the whole time. "Connor said earlier that some people may be immune to this thing, which means that at some stage somewhere somebody managed to kill it, or make it so that it wasn't harmful anymore. Now I was thinking that they must have used something to kill it, or whatever, so maybe if we can find out what that was then we may stand a chance. We don't know about the rest of the world, but I don't reckon it's anything natural because otherwise it'd be dead by now. Maybe somewhere in the world it's dead, but it isn't here, so we have to make do with what we have, three vending machines, five guns and three scientists."

"What are you on about Danny?" asked Sarah slowly. "Is it something synthetic then? We don't have anything to do tests with and we can't afford to go out of this room…"

"Those vents will lead us to almost any room in this complex. We can find some stuff for you to do experiments. If worst comes to worst we'll have to go out, won't we? We've still gotta find Lester, regardless of whether we survive or not. If, for some reason we do get cornered by this thing, just chuck everything to hand at it and see if anything happens. If it works we survive, if not then we die, simple as that…"

Becker was actually impressed. Danny Quinn had come up with a fairly plausible plan that might actually work. He didn't think Danny was capable of that.

"Right. Let's follow Quinn's plan," Becker said. He still sounded angry even though he was very nearly calm now and the others were not about to forget him almost blowing Danny's head off in a hurry. "You three can do your experiments and Quinn and I will fetch things for you. Keep your guns with you at all times, that means you too Sarah-" Becker removed the gun from his back and handed it to Sarah, she looked horrified at the thought and he felt slightly bad for forcing her to hold it, but he felt that she would be safer if she had a weapon with her. "- and you should try to make sure that at least one of you is standing guard while the others do experimenting. Quinn and I will try not to be gone at the same time though, so it shouldn't come to that. Anybody have any questions?"

Connor's hand shot up. "How will we know if we've found the right thing?" he asked carefully, hoping that somebody had some kind of plan to deal with that slight problem.

"Well we'll just have to think about that when we get there, won't we?" Becker said, sounding as though he was making a joke. He wasn't though, he just sounded that way. "If you have a problem, address it to Danny or myself, OK. This is hereby going to go by the name of Operation Vending Machine. Now tell us, what will you need?"


	5. Reflections

**Author Note: Firstly, I'm not at all happy with this chapter. Truth is I've had other things on my mind lately, but I've written it anyway. If you don't like it, tell me so and I'll completely understand. Secondly, I'm not sure how to end this, I'm torn between killing them all and saving the world, let me know what you think... So... Happy reading!**

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Chapter 5

Connor Temple was convinced that they were looking for something that didn't exist. He himself had suggested that some _people_ were resistant to the things, not _something_. It had only taken two hours, two minutes and two seconds for the vast majority of the human race to be wiped out which just went to show how powerful this thing was, and how weak the humans were. The very race that had ruled over the planet for such a long time was now being destroyed as easily as if it were merely a group of insects in a flood. The resemblance to the extinction of the dinosaurs was striking; one day the leaders of the Earth, the next dead from a meteor strike, but some things had survived the apocalypse, which was why there was life on Earth now. There was still hope.

The three scientists had no idea what they were looking for in these compounds, they never would until it was too late. This plan was foolish by any degree, it was never going to work, and even if it did they would still die horribly when the effects wore off. The three scientists themselves weren't exactly qualified to be doing this kind of thing either, Sarah Page was an Egyptologist, Abby Maitland was a zoologist and Connor Temple was... well, nothing specific. Then there were their assistants, Captain Becker with his unknown first name and a handful of guns, and Danny Quinn, an ex-police officer. In sort, the small team seemed almost doomed before they began.

Danny Quinn, however, was trying to be positive. There was a chance that their plan would work and they would survive and then life could just about return to normal. Yeah, so the entire planet was dead apart from them, but that didn't matter, they would get by. After all, he had been fine after the death of his brother all those years ago.

Everyone was working in silence; trying to do their assigned tasks for fear that Becker would come after them with his guns. He hadn't come back for a while and Danny was sure he'd gone back to the ammo room to stock up. He had already wasted three bullets on a vending machine and it seemed that today he was going to shoot first and ask questions later, but whatever floated his boat...

Sarah Page was starting to worry about Becker, she didn't know how long he had been gone but she hadn't acknowledged his presence for quite some time and in the present situation that was probably bad news. She desperately wanted to send Danny to find him but didn't for fear that Danny might not come back either. She really didn't want to have to fire the gun that Becker had given her, but she knew that she would probably have to at some point. She had never fired a gun before and she felt slightly anxious in case it went wrong and she hit someone.

Abby Maitland had regrets. She regretted leaving her brother Jack behind to die; she regretted missing out on so many things in life because of choices she had made. If she had known her life would end like this then she would have changed so many of her past decisions. Maybe she would have never even joined to A.R.C., though it pained her to think like that. A lot of things about the A.R.C. were special to her, but the people there really set the place off. She had never known every person who worked there, that was almost impossible because of the sheer number of people working behind the scenes to aid them in their jobs but her team was one of a kind. Every member of the team, past and present, still held their own special place despite the horrifying situation that now faced them. Their final challenge.

Since the foundation of their team there had been three deaths and one person who quit as a result. The first death had happened years ago, that of Captain Ryan at some stage in the past. It had hardly been an avoidable death and the captain had served the team loyally until the very end, Abby thought. The second life to be lost was Stephen Hart as a result of Oliver Leek and his strange experiments on the creatures captured by the team. Stephen need not have died when he did, he died to stop Nick Cutter from going to his death and Nick never did get over the loss. Nick Cutter himself was the most recent death, shot by his wife in a burning building and left for dead. Connor had been with him when he died and most of the team considered his life as the dearest loss of all because it had always been _his _team and he was sorely missed, he still was sorely missed. Jenny Lewis, once, according to Cutter, Claudia Brown, had quit soon after Cutter's death despite the fact that James Lester had given the team to her in the aftermath. Now they didn't really have a leader, Danny Quinn liked to be in control of it but he wasn't anything official and Captain Becker had the authority over them but not leadership. Captain Becker had been assigned to protect them after the untimely death of Stephen Hart but they never seemed to make his job any easier.

Almost every team member had come to the conclusion that they were the last people on Earth and the chances that they soon wouldn't be. It was all pointless anyway, if, by some bizarre stroke of luck, they did survive then they could hardly repopulate the Earth properly and they would die as lonely as they had survived. Even if Connor had been right and people had survived elsewhere it was still the end of the world and even if they did survive and repopulate the Earth this time around then next time it really would be the end of the world as they knew it.


	6. On Time Ticks

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Chapter 6

Time passed, ticking slowly as it always did, but regularly. Perhaps, in the two hours, two minutes and two seconds it had taken for the world to end, time had been the only constant for the survivers locked up in the ARC.

Perhaps time would get rid of this menace for them? Good old time had a habit of catching up with everything in the end, however powerful they had been before. It had taken out the human race well enough.

Now the survivors sat in the lobby of the ARC at something of a dead end. An ex-student of Professer Cutter and long-time nerd sat drinking his third can of Fanta hopefully, as if he would find the answer to their dilemma at the bottom, or at least some clue to whatever it was they were searching for. A zoologist had her knees crushed into her chest as if to comfort herself in the fact that she would probably be dead in a few hours time, but glad of the company she kept in her last hours, glad she was not alone. An Egyptologist kept up with the experiments she knew next to nothing about; she was not _that_ kind of scientist by any extension of the word. Perhaps her constant strivings for a ray of hope were all that kept the team from crumbling apart around them. A soldier paced up and down, ever vigilant and ever ready; ready to give his life for any one of them at a second's notice, even the ones he had never truly understood and never truly would. A police officer recounted what he had seen from the ventilation shaft with some animation before falling silent once more and staying that way, opening a can of Fanta for himself and sinking to the floor to drink it.

"So..." Connor said in a feeble attempt to make some kind of conversation, and the others looked around in shock at the sound, startled by the sudden life it brought to the otherwise silent bunch of survivors. "What do we do now?"

"Find Lester." The reply was simple and delivered with some force by the man who felt the need to check their perimeter was secure every five minutes and now shook his handheld detector irritably in an attempt to check their life signatures were still functioning.

Danny got to his feet quickly, discarding the now empty can on the floor and smiling. "I reckon I could find a way to Lester's office through those vents..."

"No way, Quinn. It's my job to protect you all from harm, and I can't do that unless you all stay in this one room where I can see you."

"Yes," the policeman replied, raising an eyebrow cynically. "But you also said it's your job to protect Lester, and you can't see him right now, can you?" The logic was undeniable, and when nobody replied Danny saw fit to continue: "You don't need to worry about me, Becker. I've got firearms experience and police training..."

"... And a knack for getting yourself into trouble." Then Becker stopped and sighed, looking at the three scientists and then back at Danny. "If you're not back in an hour we're coming to find you, understand?"

Quinn just smiled. "Perfectly," he stated, climbing through the dislodged grate in a matter of seconds and disappearing from sight.

Becker checked his watch and then looked back at the others before resolving to check their perimeter for the umpteenth time while the scientists turned back to continue their fruitless work. They wouldn't even know if what they had found worked until they died or survived, the fatal flaw in the already highly flawed plan.

And all around them time ticked by as if nothing had ever happened, marking their movements with an awkwardly eerie mantra: _And then there were four_.

* * *

_Author Note: Hmm... Why am I here, writing this? It's been a year, more than a year, and a lot has changed since last time. Not to mention the cast of Primeval. Reminder: I started writing this in the middle of series 3, so Helen's alive and Cutter's just died... Connor, Abby and Danny have never ended up trapped in the past... Sarah's alive... And Matt and Jess have never been employed in the ARC. Didn't like them anyway._

_Short chapter. Depending on the number of reviews I get it might be followed by more, since Primeval is back and didn't get cancelled (because, I believe, the last time I wrote this, it still was)._

_Perhaps y'all missed me, but then again perhaps not... Lemme know_

_~ARTY~_


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